Jun. 18, 2013

Regina Sachs stands outside her Toms River home as workers prepare to lift it higher and move it temporarily onto the property next door so pilings can be sunk to elevate the house. / PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Jonathan Faircloth works underneath the Toms River home of Sam and Regina Sachs as workers prepare to move it to an empty lot next door so pilings can be sunk and the home be placed on top of them. / PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SCALING BACK

In revised flood maps released by FEMA Sunday for four counties, the number of homes falling in the V or velocity zones have been reduced by the following percentages: Monmouth County: 46 percent Ocean County: 45 percent Atlantic County: 80 percent Hudson County: 76 percent Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency

Ernie Johnson, a foreman for Wolfe House and Building Movers gives directions to a mini-bull dozer driver as they push a support beam under the Toms River home of Sam and Regina Sachs to help with support as they lift the house. / PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Worker Wooley Durbin works with a beam that was inserted lengthwise under the Toms River home of Sam and Regina Sachs. Workers from Wolfe House and Building Movers will lift and move the home to an empty lot next door so pilings can be sunk and the home will be placed on top of them. / PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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From his work as a criminal defense attorney, Sam Sachs has seen his share of stressful days. But that’s nothing compared to what he and his wife, Regina, have experienced with superstorm Sandy and preparing to elevate their bayfront Toms River home to defend against future storms.

So you would think the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s newly revised flood maps, which show that their home no longer sits in the highest-risk flood zone, would ease their minds and change their course.

But no. The pilings will be going in the ground in the next few days.

“I never want to go through this again,” said Sam Sachs, 60. “The next time water hits the bottom of my house, it’s going to flood all the way to the Delaware River.”

Less work for thousands

FEMA scaled back huge sections of the highest-risk flood zones, called V or velocity zones, in four counties under its new flood maps. The difference between being in a V Zone and an A Zone, a less-hazardous flood zone, is tens of thousands of dollars in elevation work.

In Monmouth County, the acreage that stood in the highest-risk V or velocity zones dropped by 46 percent from 5,003 in the old advisory flood maps to 2,698 in the new maps. In Ocean County, the V Zones were reduced 45 percent from 38,012 acres in the old advisory maps to 20,808 in the working maps.

In Atlantic County, the acreage that sat in V Zones stood at 46,749 and is now 9,567, an 80 percent drop. Much of the V Zone acreage removed in the new maps was undeveloped marshland, said Bill McDonnell, the mitigation branch director for FEMA’s Region II, which covers New Jersey. McDonnell is overseeing the mapping project.

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In Hudson County, the V Zones shrank from 2,030 acres to 480, a 76 percent decrease.

Overall, that’s a drop of 63 percent in the four counties.

FEMA does not have figures on how many homes and other structures are included.

FEMA is updating maps that were last made final in the 1980s, with the exception of a portion of Monmouth County that was revised four years ago. It released its Advisory Base Flood Elevations in December to give Sandy victims an idea of how high they needed to elevate their homes.

But the science used in those advisory maps was incomplete.

Too little or too much?

McDonnell said the new or “preliminary working flood maps” are based on a 100-year storm, a storm that has a 1 percent chance of occurring each year. That’s standard practice for FEMA nationwide. Local governments are free to require people who are rebuilding or building new structures to go above that, in a practice known as freeboarding.

FEMA has come under fire not only from grass-roots groups decrying what they called FEMA’s overkill on placing too many homes in V Zones, but also from those who say the agency is underplaying the threat of global warming and rising sea levels.

“We know that New Jersey could be hit with up to a Category 3 hurricane and what the impacts might be. Sandy was not even a Category 1 when it hit New Jersey,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We know the sea level is rising along the mid-Atlantic, with some of the fastest rises affecting New Jersey and even more so along the Delaware River and Bayshore area.

“The problem with the FEMA mapping is that it is like driving down the highway at 80 miles an hour and only looking in the rear-view mirror.”

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, Sandy was roughly a 300-year-storm along the Monmouth County Bayshore and oceanfront. That’s a storm with a 1-in-300 chance of arriving each year.

The severity of Sandy was particularly felt in Mantoloking. The new maps have removed most of the Ocean County borough from V Zones.

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The work on the revisions to the maps began with topographical information gathered by planes through a technology called Lidar, a laser system that acts like radar. The system bounces light off the ground and it is reflected back to the plane, providing FEMA with the lay of the land.

That gave FEMA and the public “a very conservative estimate” on what they could expect, erring on the side of caution, McDonnell said earlier this month. And that translated into consternation for many people who now faced more expensive reconstruction costs.

More complex science

Since December, FEMA added more complex science to the picture as well as geographical obstacles that local officials advised it of, such as bulkheads, buildings, vegetation and dunes — anything that can slow down a wave. The added science is known as an Overland Wave Analysis, which takes into account the history of storms, erosion and other factors.

McDonnell said during a conference call Monday that FEMA will take a look at dune projects planned or now underway and assess whether that changes the mapping for a community.

People who sustained more than 50 percent damage in Sandy must rebuild by the new standards within the next few years. Those who suffered less damage don’t have to, but they would be facing skyrocketing flood insurance premiums.

He added that FEMA will now be offering a toll-free hotline in the coming days for people with questions about rebuilding. Estimates of flood insurance will be available, he said. The hotline is 877-287-9804.

The picture for some improved over what it had been years ago, because of large structures built since then that block waves.